My $20 3 day newspaper ad finally generated something besides people wanting to sell me their BPC sets. Yesterday, this guy called to tell me that he had two old TV's, a 19" color and a 19" B&W. He said one had knobs and the other had buttons and that both of them worked. He brought them by this morning and the color set was an '83 Hitachi (which I really didn't want) and the B&W set was a June, '78 Zenith made in Chicago and using the 19GB1Z chassis. I told him that I really couldn't use the Hitachi and offered him $5 for the Zenith. He didn't like that idea and wanted me to take both sets at $10 each; so, I did. Maybe I can sell the Hitachi to recoup my investment.
The Zenith was very nasty, looked like it had been in a barn. The CRT is branded Zenith; but, was actually built by Sylvania according to the EIA code (312) on the tube. The tube tested weak at first; but, came up nicely after cooking it on 8 volts for about 30 minutes. I still need to clean it up better and I need the VHF and UHF fine tuning knobs as well as the UHF channel selector knob. I have it connected to a DTV converter and it has a nice Zenith picture. I was surprised to see that this set was made in the USA. I thought Zenith B&W set production had shifted to Taiwan and Mexico by the late '70's. The chassis is well built and uses a power transformer and is probably one of the last "well built" B&W's. Years ago, I had a 23" steel cabinet Zenith B&W that used a very similar chassis.
06-23-2009, 02:33 PM
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